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Awards and Honors

Fama Wins 2012 Best Perspective Award from CFA Institute

Eugene F. Fama, MBA '63, PhD '64, Robert R. McCormick Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, was awarded the Best Perspective Award from the CFA Institute for an article critical of active fund managers who pick individual stocks. CFA called the article timely and thought provoking.

The article published in the November/December issue of the Financial Analysts Journal, noted that, "After costs, only the top 3 percent of fund managers produce a return that indicates they have sufficient skill to just cover their costs."

The article, "An Experienced View on Markets and Investing," was based on remarks Fama made at the 65th CFA Institute Annual Conference.

Photo by Beth Rooney

Rajan Earns Deutsche Bank Prize, Regulatory Innovation Award

Rajan's academic contributions include "novel empirical and theoretical approaches with significant policy implications" to the field of financial economics and complement his role as chief economic adviser in India's Finance Ministry. Rajan in August was named governor of the Reserve Bank of India.

The Frankfort-based Center for Financial Studies, which awards the biennial prize, cited Rajan's "remarkably broad range of areas in financial economics most important to the development of economies worldwide."

Rajan joins professor Eugene Fama as the second Booth professor to win the Deutsche Bank Prize. Fama received the inaugural commendation in 2005.

Rajan was also awarded the Regulatory Innovation Award by the Burton Foundation, a nonprofit concentrating on legal writing.

Photo by Dan Dry

Davis Receives Addington Prize in Measurement

Steven J. Davis, William H. Abbott Professor of International Business and Economics and deputy dean for faculty, was awarded the Addington Prize in Measurement for his paper, "Measuring Economic Policy Uncertainty."

Davis, with coauthors Scott Baker and Nicholas Bloom, created an index to measure policy-related economic uncertainty. The award by the Fraser Institute, a Canadian think tank, called the research a "groundbreaking report [that] develops the first rigorous analytical framework for measuring the extent and impact of economic policy uncertainty in the United States." The institute said that a panel of academics in selecting the winning paper considered "originality and significance of ideas presented, persuasiveness of the argument, and integrity of the data."

Photo by Beth Rooney

Guerrieri Named Top Young Italian Economist

Professor of economics Veronica Guerrieri received the Carlo Alberto Medal, awarded once every two years to the top Italian economist under 40. The award is given by Collegio Carlo Alberto, a foundation in Turin, Italy.

Guerrieri, who studies labor markets and financial market frictions, was recognized as "a broad-ranging economist who has contributed significantly to our understanding of labor markets both at the micro and at the macro level."

Photo by Chris Lake

AQR Insight Award to Seru

Amit Seru, professor of finance, was a corecipient of the 2013 AQR Insight Award in the Distinguished Paper category for his research on how to identify and quantify misrepresented loans in the $2 trillion market for private mortgage-backed securities.

The research, "Asset Quality Misrepresentation by Financial Intermediaries: Evidence from the RMBS Market," was coauthored with colleagues from Columbia Business School. Seru and his colleagues compared characteristics of mortgages disclosed to investors at the time of sale with ocial mortgage terms provided by a credit bureau. Seru and his colleagues revealed "about 10 percent of mortgages sold by intermediaries from 2005 to 2007 contained false information.

Norman Maclean Faculty Awards Honor Davis and Zonis

Harry L. Davis, Roger L. and Rachel M. Goetz Distinguished Service Professor of Creative Management, and Marvin Zonis, professor emeritus of business administration, received the Norman Maclean Faculty Award at the 2013 Alumni Awards, held June 8 at Rockefeller Chapel.

The accolade, which also includes a library fund for the purchase of books in the faculty member's honor, is given to emeritus or senior faculty who have made significant contributions to at least two generations of students at the University of Chicago.

Marianne Bertrand, Chris P. Dialynas Distinguished Service Professor of Economics, received the Phoenix Award at this year's Dean's Awards Celebration in recognition of her contributions to the community and learning experiences of the 2013 graduating class of Full-Time students.

Erik Hurst, V. Duane Rath Professor of Economics and John E. Jeuck Faculty Fellow, received the 2013 Faculty Excellence Award. The prize honors a faculty member who has demonstrated an exceptional commitment to teaching, as voted by the students.

Douglas J. Skinner, John P. and Lillian A. Gould Professor of Accounting, was recognized with the Emory Williams Award for excellence in teaching.

Photo of Bertrand by Beth Rooney, photo of Hurst by Chris Lake, and photo of Skinner by Dan Dry

Professors Honored by Executive MBA Students

Ronald S. Burt, Hobart W. Williams Professor of Sociology and Strategy, and Kevin Francis Rock, clinical professor of finance, won the Hillel J. Einhorn Excellence in Teaching Award from students in the Executive MBA Program North America. Burt joined the Booth faculty in 1993 and studies the ways that social networks create competitive advantage in careers, organizations, and markets. Rock joined the faculty in 2004 and teaches corporate finance.

Per Stromberg, adjunct professor of finance, won the Einhorn award from students in the Executive MBA Program Europe. Stromberg has taught at Booth since 1997 and specializes in financial strategy.

Matthew S. Bothner, visiting professor of organizations and strategy, received the same honor from students in the Executive MBA Program Asia. He taught strategic leadership.

Linda E. Ginzel, clinical professor of managerial psychology, received the inaugural Einhorn award for a faculty member who teachers students from all three campuses. Ginzel joined the Booth faculty in 1998 and teaches courses in negotiations, management, and leadership.

Photo of Burt by Dan Dry, photo of Rock by Beth Rooney, and photo of Ginzel by Chris Lake

Appointments and Promotions

New Distinguished Professor Named

Marianne Bertrand is Chris P. Dialynas Distinguished Service Professor of Economics. Bertrand uses data to explore societal trends and in recent research she has explored how income impacts gender roles. Bertrand is a research fellow at several centers, including the National Bureau of Economic Research. She is faculty codirector of Booth's Social Enterprise Initiative (SEI), and is on the board of the Neubauer Family Collegium for Culture and Society at the University of Chicago as well as the Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab. She coedits the American Economic Review, which has published her work; her research also has been published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Political Economy, and the Journal of Finance.

Photo by Beth Rooney

New Faculty Chairs Named

Philip G. Berger is Wallman Family Professor of Accounting. Formerly Wallace W. Booth Professor of Accounting, Berger joined the Booth faculty in 2002. Berger's research focuses on financial reporting and corporate finance. His teaching interests include financial accounting, financial statement analysis, and empirical accounting research. In 2011, he was awarded the Phoenix Award by the Chicago Booth Class of 2011 for greatly enriching the community and learning experience of students. Berger's work has been featured in various publications, including the Accounting Review, the Journal of Accounting & Economics, the Journal of Accounting Research (which he has coedited since 2004), the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Finance, and the Review of Financial Studies.

Photo by Chris Lake

Matthew Gentzkow is Richard O. Ryan Professor of Economics and Neubauer Family Faculty Fellow. Gentzkow, previously professor of economics, joined the Booth faculty in 2004. He researches issues related to political economy and empirical industrial organization, with a focus on media industries. His work has been published in the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the American Economic Review, and Econometrica. Gentzkow was awarded a National Science Foundation grant for his research on bias in the media. He was also the recipient of an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in 2009.

Photo by Beth Rooney

Lars Stole is David W. Johnson Professor of Economics. Previously Eli B. and Harriet B. Williams Professor of Economics, Stole joined the Booth faculty in 1991. His research interests include contracts and incentive theory, strategic pricing, industrial economics, and game theory. Stole has received accolades for his research, including an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship, a National Science Foundation Presidential Faculty Fellowship, and an Olin Fellowship in Law and Economics from Harvard Law School. He currently is a research fellow for CESifo and serves as codirector of the Applied Theory Initiative, an interdisciplinary research group at Booth.

Photo by Beth Rooney

Chad Syverson is J. Baum Harris Professor of Economics. Syverson, formerly professor of economics, moved to the Booth faculty in 2008 from the University of Chicago's Department of Economics, where he taught for seven years. His research focuses on interactions of firm structure, market structure, and productivity. Syverson serves on the board of the Chicago Census Research Data Center and is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Photo by Beth Rooney

Faculty Promotions

Eric Budish has been promoted to associate professor from assistant professor of economics. He is also William S. Fishman Faculty Scholar. Budish joined Booth faculty in 2009 and studies microeconomic theory and market design. His most recent research concerns the design of financial markets.

Drew D. Creal was promoted to associate professor from assistant professor of econometrics and statistics. Creal joined the Booth faculty in 2009 and studies time series econometrics and statistics with particular emphasis on state space and time-varying parameter models as applied to macroeconomics and finance.

Pingyang Gao was promoted to associate professor from assistant professor of accounting. Gao joined the Booth faculty in 2008 and studies disclosure regulation, accounting standards setting, incentive and contracting, and equity valuation.

Tarek Alexander Hassan was promoted to associate professor from assistant professor of finance and economics. Hassan joined the Booth faculty in 2009 and researches international finance, economic history, and macroeconomics.

Emir Kamenica was promoted to professor from associate professor of economics. Kamenica joined the Booth faculty in 2006 and studies such microeconomic issues as the design of informational environments, behavioral industrial organization, and dating and marriage markets.

Burhaneddin Sandikçi was promoted to associate professor from assistant professor of operations management. Sandikçi joined the Booth faculty in 2008 and studies decision-making problems under uncertainty with an emphasis on problems in medical decision making and health-care operations.

Amit Seru was promoted to professor from associate professor of finance. Seru joined the Booth faculty in 2007 and researches issues related to financial intermediation and regulation, interaction of internal organization of firms with financing and investment, and incentive provisions in firms. (For more on Seru, see "How Financial Companies Pushed Expensive Mortgages.")

Zheng Michael Song has been promoted to associate professor from assistant professor of economics. Song joined the Booth faculty in 2011 and studies macroeconomics, the Chinese economy, and political economy.